David Bottoms

Shooting Rats At The Bibb County Dump - Poem by David Bottoms

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Loaded on beer and whiskey, we ride to the dump in carloadsto turn our headlights across the wasted field, freeze the startled eyes of rats against mounds of rubbish.

Shot in the head, they jump only once, lie still like dead beer cans.Shot in the gut or rump, they writhe and try to burrow into garbage, hide in old truck tires, rusty oil drums, cardboard boxes scattered across the mounds,or else drag themselves on forelegs across our beams of light toward the darkness at the edge of the dump.

It's the light they believe kills. We drink and load again, let them crawlfor all they're worth into the darkness we're headed for.